Safe Drinking Water for Low-Income Regions: Preferences and Affordability among End-Users ...

365 Pages·2015·5.7 MB·English

UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Safe Drinking Water for Low-Income Regions: Preferences and Affordability among End-
Users - Case studies from Urban India and Rural Tanzania
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8fp1z0k3
Author
Burt, Zachary I.
Publication Date
2015

Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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Safe Drinking Water for Low-Income Regions:
Preferences and Affordability among End-Users
Case studies from Urban India and Rural Tanzania
by
Zachary Ian Burt

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
Energy and Resources
in the
Graduate Division
of the
University of California, Berkeley

Committee in charge:
Professor Isha Ray, Chair
Professor Kara L. Nelson
Professor Joan L. Walker
Professor Thomas F. Clasen

Summer 2015

Abstract
Safe Drinking Water for Low-Income Regions:
Preferences and Affordability among End-Users
Case studies from Urban India and Rural Tanzania

by
Zachary Ian Burt
Doctor of Philosophy in Energy and Resources,
University of California, Berkeley

Committee in charge:
Professor Isha Ray, Chair
Professor Kara L. Nelson
Professor Joan L. Walker
Professor Thomas F. Clasen

“Nothing is more useful than water; but it will purchase scarce anything;
scarce anything can be had in exchange for it.”
– Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776: 1.4.13)

Well into the 21st century, safe and affordable drinking water remains an unmet human need.
Globally, at least 1.8 billion people are potentially exposed to microbial contamination in their
drinking water on a regular basis (Onda, LoBuglio, and Bartram 2012). These people are found
disproportionately in low-income households located in developing countries; nearly half of all
people without access to an improved water source live in Sub-Saharan Africa, while one fifth
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live in Southern Asia (WHO/UNICEF 2015). Attempts at increasing access to safe water include
a wide range of scales, from urban piped water networks providing services to millions of
people, to Household Water Treatment and safe storage Systems (HWTS) which allow
individuals to provide safe drinking water to their family.
Encouraging uptake across a population and ensuring consistent and correct usage are vital
for the creation of improved health outcomes from HWTS interventions. For urban water utilities
and community systems, assessing and addressing health risks, planning successful upgrades and
forecasting revenue streams requires an understanding of how people access, collect and store
water, as well as their willingness to pay (WTP) for water services. In the cases of both HWTS
interventions and piped water systems, addressing this public health issue requires an
understanding of the perspectives, preferences, access points and financial means of end-users,
especially those at the lowest income levels and in the most inaccessible locales.
This dissertation has focused on two different case studies: one in rural Tanzania and the
other in urban India. In both locations our teams collected observations regarding preferences
and current practices of water access and usage. We measured WTP across a variety of potential
options for drinking water treatment and access in both locations. In the city of Hubli-Dharwad,
India, I evaluated a pilot project, measuring stated WTP for both end-users experiencing
continuous water service (CWS) and those experiencing intermittent water service (IWS). In four
rural villages of Tanzania we asked local residents to evaluate six HWTS, and then collected
information on user preferences and WTP.
For both locations I analyzed our observations with current policy debates in mind, and gave
recommendations for both future research as well as the local management of domestic water
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systems. These two very different locations have little in common except for a need to improve
access to safe drinking water; my research provides vital information on how to create
interventions that people want and need. The results from Tanzania are relevant for other
countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as other developing regions with limited access to
improved water sources and high rates of turbidity. The results from Hubli-Dharwad are relevant
to other urban areas in South Asia, and IWS piped water networks in other developing regions as
well.
The knowledge generated in both locations also contributes to the literature on user
preferences and WTP for water services. For the HWTS literature, my research addresses
questions about why some HWTS interventions may have failed to scale up to a larger
population or to sustain usage among participating households over time; namely that taste,
smell, aesthetics, familiarity and ease of use are all vital components of an individual’s decision
as whether or not they will treat their drinking water. For this reason, boiling deserves
reconsideration as a potentially important option for future HWTS interventions. WTP for retail
HWTS is non-zero for the majority of households even in a highly impoverished location such as
rural Tanzania, but it is still far below retail prices.
The user preferences and WTP analysis for in Hubli-Dharwad sheds light on what piped
water services are valued by end-users, and gives some indications on whether and when they
should be pursued, adding to the research literature concerning urban utility management and
informal urban services. In particular, three key findings emerge from my work there. The first is
that CWS may not always be the best upgrade option, and may not provide all of the benefits that
it usually is assumed to provide, depending on the experiences, preferences and beliefs of the
local end-users. Second, a subset of low-income households depends on free supplemental water
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sources and therefore service upgrade projects should not include their removal. And finally,
water quality is important, but taste and smell can confound households’ perceptions of water
quality, and therefore water aesthetics are a salient issue that may deserve greater attention in the
future.

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List of Figures
Figure 1.1: “Source to Sip” Model
Figure 2.1: Map of India
Figure 2.2: Maps of Hubli and Dharwad.
Figure 3.1: The Source to Sip (S2S) Water System in Hubli-Dharwad
Figure 3.2: Water delivery frequency across data collection rounds.
Figure 4.1: Average Rank Of HWTS, separated by high and low source water turbidity.
Figure 4.2: Reasons given for why participants liked their assigned HWTS
Figure 4.3: Reasons given for why participants disliked their assigned HWTS
Figure 4.4 : The Ceramic Pot Filter and PuR Demand Curves with Retail Prices and Median Bid
Prices.

i
List of Tables
Table 2.1: Water access type by percentage of population and wealth category
Table 2.2: Storage volume in regular use; 24/7 water supply zone, Hubli-Dharwad.
Table 2.3: Number of households with large arrears (24/7 areas only).
Table 3.2: Water access type by percentage of population and wealth category
Table 3.2: Comparison of the CWS and Intermittent Tariff Structures
Table 3.3: Attributes and levels included in the stated preference survey.
Table 3.4: The stated preference discrete choice model.
Table 3.5: Willingness to Pay (₹/Month).
Table 3.6: Expected Monthly Water Bills (₹/Month).
Table 4.1: WTP bids for HWTS.
Table 5.5: Summary Points.
ii
Glossary:
CWS Continuous Water Service
HWTS Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage System
IWS Intermittent Water Service
S2S Source to Sip
WTP Willingness to Pay

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